Ted Grant

Stalin Versus Marx

A significant speech was delivered by Gregori
Aleksandrov at the Lenin memorial meeting in Moscow. Aleksandrov is the chief of the
Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist
(Stalinist) Party. Present at his speech were the elite of the bureaucracy and
all the members of the Political Bureau.

In this speech he openly proclaimed a revision
of the fundamental doctrines of Marxism-Leninism on the state.

Aleksandrov’s
Speech

“Theories
developed by Marx in the middle of the nineteenth century could not be accepted
unchanged by Lenin. Lenin developed the idea that Marxists could not regard the
theory of Marx as inviolable, and that that theory must constantly absorb the
new experience of history and exert a transforming influence on the development
of society. He accurately foresaw that the forces of reaction abroad would
attempt to destroy the Socialist Soviet Union.

“The
establishment of a powerful and flourishing Socialist land had been possible
only, the speaker explained, because the theory of building a Socialist society
in a single country was put into effect. There were two aspects of this policy.
There were internal obstacles to be swept away and dangers from abroad to be
met. Today there was no force within the Soviet Union
capable of preventing the further development of Socialism and its gradual
transition to Communism. Vigilance against attack from without had necessitated
the rejection of the Marxist theory of the withering away of the State, based
on the assumption of international Socialism and the adoption of the Stalin
theory of building a strong State with a powerful army and its own military
science capable of winning in war and achieving the military and diplomatic
consolidation of victory.” (The Times, February 1st,
1946).

Here, in a finished form, is that vulgarisation
of the ideas of Marxism against which Lenin fought all his life. The attempt to
drag Lenin in as an opponent of Karl Marx is a vilification of the memory of
the orthodox Marxist, Lenin. Lenin fought his whole life against the narrow,
nationalist conception of “Socialism in one country.”

Stalin’s
Previous Position

Stalin himself wrote in 1924, in his book Foundations of Leninism: this of course,
before he said exactly the reverse:

“Can
we succeed and secure the definitive victory of Socialism in one country
without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries?
Most certainly not. The efforts of a single country are enough to overthrow the
bourgeoisie: this is what the history of our revolution proves. But for the
definite triumph of Socialism, the organisation of socialist production, the
efforts of one country alone are not enough, particularly of an essentially
rural country like Russia;
the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are needed. So
the victorious revolution in one country has for its essential task to develop
and support the revolution in others. So it ought not to be considered as of
independent value, but as an auxiliary, a means of hastening the victory of the
proletariat in other countries.” (Stalin, Theory
and Practice of Leninism, issued by the C.P.G.B., 1925).

Fruits
of “Socialism in One Country”

This theory of “Socialism in one country” has
been shown to be false both internally and externally. The Communist
International, from being an instrument of revolution, was reduced to an
instrument of foreign policy for the Soviet bureaucracy. Thus, as a
consequence, the revolution in other countries met disaster after disaster and
because of this, inevitably resulted in war on the Soviet
Union. Today the Communist International has been thrown into the
dustbin.

The victory of the Soviet Union in war does not
solve the basic problems of the Soviet Union.
The policy of Stalin is preparing inevitably a third world war. All the efforts
of Stalinism to gain “military” and “diplomatic consolidation” against her
“allies”—Britain and America—will in
the end result in the same disaster as did the Stalin-Hitler pact. As Lenin so
clearly pointed out, war will continue so long as capitalism exists in the rest
of the world. Thus, the theory of “Socialism in one country” far from building
socialism free from interference, prepares new and greater catastrophes for the
Russian and world working class.

Socialism
needs no state

Stalinism cannot show a single line in Lenin
which would justify the rejection of the Marxist theory of the withering away
of the state. Just the contrary. Lenin’s little masterpiece State and Revolution categorically refutes
this revisionism. The argument that a strong state is necessary because of the
danger of intervention from without, is palpably false. If socialism really had
been achieved in the Soviet Union, there could
be no question of intervention on the part of the capitalist world. On the
contrary, the capitalists would be powerless economically, militarily and
politically in the face of a socialist society. This would be because socialism
would achieve such an enormous development of the productive forces that America’s vast
productive facilities would seem puny by comparison.

Such a system, far from requiring an enormously
strengthened state, as Lenin taught in the above mentioned work, would need no
state at all. The necessity of the state does not arise from the danger of
military intervention—but from the inequalities within society, and to regulate
the antagonisms that arise from these inequalities. Lenin called the state a
capitalist survival. Far from seeing the need for a constant strengthening of
the state and of the army, Marx and Lenin expounded the idea of the “armed
people” replacing the standing army, pouring scorn on the opportunists and the
Mensheviks who argued the need for a military caste and a civil bureaucracy
standing above the people.

Lenin
on the State

Lenin would have stood aghast at such a
revision, even in the early stages of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We
quote from Lenin:

“The proletariat needs the state—this is repeated by
all the opportunists, social-chauvinists and Kautskyists, who assure us that
this is what Marx taught. They ‘forget’
however, to add that, in the first place, the proletariat, according to Marx,
needs only a state which is withering away, i.e. a state which is so
constituted that it begins to wither away immediately, and cannot but wither
away; and secondly, the workers need ‘a state, i.e., the proletariat organised
as the ruling class.’

“The state is a special organisation of force; it is
the organisation of violence for the suppression of some class. What class must
the proletariat suppress? Naturally, the exploiting class only, i.e. the
bourgeoisie. The toilers need the state only to overcome the resistance of the
exploiters, and only the proletariat can direct this suppression and bring it
to fulfilment, for the proletariat is the only class that is thoroughly revolutionary,
the only class that can unite all the toilers and the exploited in the struggle
against the bourgeoisie, in completely displacing it.” (State and Revolution, Lenin, Collected
Works, page 168). [source] (translation differs)

Lenin was not satisfied with
explaining how the state would wither away under Socialism, but laid down
concrete measures, not for socialism be it noted, but even for the
establishment of a workers’ state—the dictatorship of the proletariat.

“The
workers, having conquered political power, will break up the old bureaucratic
apparatus, they will shatter it to its foundations, until not one stone is left
upon another; and they will replace it with a new one consisting of these same
workers and employees, againstwhose transformation into bureaucrats
measures will at once be undertaken, as pointed out in detail by Marx and
Engels: (1) not only electiveness, but also instant re-call; (2) payment no
higher than that of ordinary workers; (3) immediate transition to a state of
things when all fulfil the functions
of control and superintendence, so that all
become ‘bureaucrats’ for a time, and no
one, therefore, can become a ‘bureaucrat’.”
[source] (translation differs)

The Stalinist State

Not a single one of these conditions is in
existence in Russia
today. The Soviets have been abolished and a parliament—without the advantages
of bourgeois democracy, free elections of contending parties and candidates—has
taken their place. Instead of the dissolution of the army into the armed
people, we have a caste of privileged military bureaucrats living on higher
standards in relation to the Russian soldiers than even the generals in the
capitalist countries in relation to their rank and file. The rule of no payment
for officials higher these that of a worker was long ago abolished. And high
state officials and bureaucrats have greater differences with the people in
privileges and wages than even in the capitalist countries. “The functions of
control and superintendence” have long ago disappeared and an all-powerful
caste of bureaucrats in state and factory orders the workers’ lives.

As if to make quite certain of answering
traitors such as Stalin and Aleksandrov in advance, Lenin had written:

“The possibility of such destruction [of
bureaucracy—E.G.] is assured by the fact that Socialism will shorten the
working day, raise the masses to new life, create such conditions for the
majority of the population as to enable everybody, without exception, to
perform ‘state functions’, and this will lead to a complete withering away of
every state in general.”
[source] (translation differs)

“The more democratic the ‘state’ consisting of armed
workers, which is ‘no longer a state in the proper sense of the word’, the more
rapidly does every state begin to wither away.”
[source] (translation differs)

Open
break with Marxism

Thus we see that Lenin’s position is just the
opposite to that of Stalin and his mouth-piece Aleksandrov. To attempt to
separate Marx from Lenin is to betray all the teachings of Leninism, in the
name of Lenin. Stalin, the anti-Marxist, for the first time here openly
proclaims his break with Marxism through one of the stooges. Up to now the
Stalinists have made a pretence of basing themselves on the Marxist theory of
the state. For years they have slandered and vilified Trotsky because he
foretold the inevitable break with Marxism. This open break will make the road
considerably easier for the Trotskyist movement in its approach to members of
the Communist Parties who suffer from illusions that Stalinism is Marxism.

The break with Lenin’s internationalism led to
the theory of “Socialism in one country.” This in its turn has led now to the
open break with Marxism on the question of the state. This fundamental breach
with the ideas of Marx and Lenin prepares the way for the complete abandonment
of any pretence of standing on the programme of Bolshevism, which was always
based on the teachings of Marx.

Now that the danger of military intervention
has receded into the background, the workers, especially the youth of the
Soviet Union will be asking, even if in mottled tones, why the Marxist and
Leninist theory is not working out; what need is there for the highly paid
generals and bureaucrats in the army and civilian life? The workers will be saying:
Isn’t it about time that they who have lorded over us for the past 20 years,
should start to make themselves scarce and “wither away”?